The aim of the project is to use the lens of women’s history to tackle the continuous marginalisation of women from the peace-building efforts and to empower Cypriot and Irish women to be active agents of both peace and gender equality. Indeed, although the international community has recognized the value of women’s full and equal participation in conflict resolution, peace building, peace keeping, and in post-conflict reconstruction, the importance of women’s contribution in building a culture of peace and women’s participation in negotiation processes is still overlooked. Between 1992 and 2019 women across the world were on average only 13 per cent of the negotiators, 6 per cent of the mediators and 6 per cent of the signatories in major peace processes (see the UN General Secretary report of 2021 on women, peace and security). At the same time, although women in Cyprus and Ireland have long been working for peace, their contributions and their stories remain unknown especially to the vast majority of the younger generations.

In this context, women’s history, and the social experience of being a woman in Cyprus and Ireland will be used as educational tools, or as vehicles, for both peace education and women’s empowerment. By questioning women’s invisibility in history-telling, by investigating the links between gender and ethnic divisions/inequalities/violence, by deconstructing historical myths about genders and about the national/religious “Other”, by exploring common history and shared experiences with the women of the “Other” community (sexism in militarist culture, common history of patriarchy, victimization of women in wars, fear of rape etc.), and by learning about admirable women of the past and present, the participants will have the chance to reflect on the way each generation and each community has experienced violence and peace, women’s oppression and liberation etc.

The project’s activities

DEVELOPING THE LESSON PLANS

To prepare for the series of workshops in Cyprus and Ireland, the project team has already implemented two transnational learning activities where the Cypriot team and the Irish team visited each other and exchanged knowledge and ideas on building the meetings from the perspectives of adult education methodologies, experiential learning, interactive activities, etc. Furthermore, the project teams took history walking tours in Nicosia and Belfast where they had the chance to dive deeper into the troubled history of the two cities through a gender-sensitive approach.

IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL WORKSHOPS

At the moment, the partner organisations are organising the women’s workshops in Cyprus and Ireland. Read the Cypriot announcement here.

FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES

With the completion of the national workshops the project team will organise two transnational workshops (one in Cyprus, one in Ireland)  which will conclude the educational activities (the eleven meetings described in this application refer to the national workshops in Cyprus). A number of women participants will then travel from one partner country to the other to participate in a transnational workshop organised by the partner organisation. At the end of the project, an international (online) conference will present the results to the wider public while our team will also create a short film for women and peace.